The dread of severe punishment could not operate more forcibly. Yet he was so just, so impartial, so free from fickleness and favouritism, and so attentive to their health, their amusements, and their economy, that every individual felt him necessary to his comfort, and looked up to him as his “guide, philosopher, and friend.” ------- CHAP. XLVI. Benefit of select Reading—Hunting Excursion. UNSPEAKABLE benefit and improvement was derived from the course of reading I have described, which, in the absence of other subjects, furnished daily topics of discussion, thus impressing it more forcibly on the mind. The advantages of this course of social study, directed by a mentor so respected, were such, that I have often heard it asserted that these unformed youths derived more solid improvement from it than from all their former education. Reading is one thing; but they learned to think and to converse. The result of these acquirements served to impress on my mind what I formerly observed with regard to madame, that a promiscuous multitude of books always within reach retards the acquisition of useful knowledge. It is like having a great number of acquaintances and few friends; one of the consequences of the latter is to know much of exterior appearances, of modes and manners, but little of nature and genuine character. By running over numbers of books without selection, in a desultory manner, people, in the same way, get a general superficial idea of the varieties and nature of different styles, but do not comprehend or retain the matter with the same accuracy as those who have read a few books, by the best authors, over and over with diligent attention. I speak now of those one usually meets with; not of those commanding minds, whose intuitive research seizes on every thing worth retaining, and rejects the rest as naturally as one throws away the rind when possessed of the kernel.